Timo Koivurova. Introduction to International Environmental Law

Abstract

Already back in 1987 the Brundtland report by the World Commission on Environment and Development stressed that [n]ational and international law is being rapidly outdistanced by the accelerating pace and expanding scale of impacts on the ecological basis of development. Since then international environmental law regimes have multiplied and an up-to-date introduction to the constantly evolving field of international environmental law is very welcome, not least due to the lack of equally concise alternatives in the introductory literature. Aimed at filling this gap, Timo Koivurova with his Introduction to International Environmental Law chooses an approach well suited to the student readers he primarily intends to address. The book dispenses with footnotes, tables of treaties, and a comprehensive bibliography. Instead, a manageable number of endnotes accompany each chapter, preceded by a set of questions and research tasks, and followed by suggestions for further reading and websites addressing the respective topics. Thereby, the subject matter is presented in the most general fashion possible without making concessions to the scientific nature of the book, allowing [i]nternational environmental law and politics [to] speak for themselves (at xix). Moreover, in order to make the information provided easily accessible and comprehensible by a broad range of readers the book includes several boxes going into more detail on, e.g., specific cases, conventions, institutions, or environmental disasters. It illustrates topics and sometimes presents them from a different angle by adding photographs and figures, clarifying essentials as well as sparking the readers' imagination. The structure of this book is unlike the structure of a classical textbook, i.e., prior to addressing the historical foundations of international environmental law, Koivurova, after a brief introduction outlining the structure of the book, first introduces the reader to the basic issues in international law (Chapter 1). This chapter includes an examination of the